It is known that dye-providing materials are usually used for photographic recording materials, in particular photographic recording materials which undergo a diffusion transfer process. In this case, the stability, in particular, the light fastness of dye images formed is a major problem. Metal chelate dye-providing materials are known for improving the light fastness of dye images. Examples of using metal chelate dye-providing materials are described in, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,196,014.
In a diffusion transfer photographic process, the diffusion speed in the photographic recording materials is delayed since the metal chelate dye-providing material having a high light fastness generally has a large molecular weight. This causes a problem in that the appearance of an image after exposure and development is belated and it takes a longer time to complete the formation of the image. In an effort to eliminate this problem there has been proposed a process of forming a metal chelate dye in an image-receiving layer having a combination of a chelatable dye ligand or a chelatable dye ligand-providing material and a metal ion. This process is described in European Pat. No. 9,411A2. The corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 4,239,847, and U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,229,895 and 4,229,515 are related to this U.S. Patent.
However, since the chelatable dye ligand or dye ligand-providing material is very likely to coordinate to a metal ion, there is a large tendency for the chelatable dye ligand or the dye ligand-providing material to react with a metal ion liberated from the image-receiving element during the preparation of the photographic element or during the preservation of the photographic element to be converted into a metal chelate compound. When this takes place the hue greatly changes and the molecular weight frequently increases due to the formation of a coordination bond, resulting in problems, such as a substantial reduction in photographic sensitivity, a change in color sensitivity, an increase in the time required for finishing the image, etc.
An effort to eliminate this problem involves a process of fixing a metal ion to the image-receiving layer or a layer adjacent to the image-receiving layer using a coordinatable polymer (polymer liqand). This process is described in Japanese Patent Application (OPI) No. 48210/80, corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 4,239,847 (the term "OPI" as used herein refers to a "published unexamined Japanese patent application").
However, when a polymer capable of causing a strong coordination bond to a metal ion is used in the process, the metallization of the dye ligand released after exposure and development in the image-receiving element frequently becomes imperfect. In such a case, a transferred dye image having a good hue cannot be obtained since the unmetallized dye ligand frequently shows a different hue from that of the metallized dye ligand. Further, the light fastness of the transferred dye image is insufficient.
When preparing a multilayer color photographic material using cyan, magenta and yellow dyes, it becomes difficult to balance the reactivities of the three kinds of dyes for metal ions. That is, if a metal ion is firmly fixed in the image-receiving unit using a polymer ligand, etc., so that the dye ligand or dye ligand-providing material capable of easily coordinating to the metal ion does not react with the metal ion liberated from the image-receiving unit, the dye ligand moiety released at processing from the most uncoordinatable dye ligand or dye ligand-providing material becomes unmetallizable in the image-receiving unit.